author interview

About a year ago I had the opportunity to do an author interview with the fantastic Aaron Michael Ritchey and Cody May for a Colorado Author Interview series. The videos are officially up! If you ignore the fact that all my dates are completely wrong, I actually did a pretty good job staying focused during this interview for a change (mostly). Go me! I hope you all enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed filming it!

You can see the updated news for my Fallen and Game of Thorns series(es) by following the links On My Nightstand (or just clicking the links I included in this post). And don’t forget to check out the rest of the author videos from this series here.

Hello my delightful Cannes-Cans! I hope you all enjoyed a happy and fun holiday season. As always, I’m just a touch late to the party, but I have some exciting news and a gift – of sorts – for all my fans and followers: More Me!!!

In the process of recovering from the cataclysm that was my computer’s destruction, I’ve been struggling to get back into any kind of swing of things. In my most recent post about the aftermath of what happened, I talked about how I was moving toward acceptance. I’m still not sure I’m there. Honestly, I have good days and bad. Some are a flurry of activity – I’ve even managed to make some progress on Destroyed – while others are a struggle in nearly every way. The good news, at least, is that I seem to be having more good days than bad lately and I’ve made some personal changes (particularly a new and lower stress job) that seem to have bolstered my motivation and creativity. Amen-hallelujah! It’s about fucking time.

To start, if you haven’t been around (because I haven’t been posting), I’ve added some new pages to My Twisted Fairy Tales. Be sure to check them all out. I now have pages for fans of my fiction and fans of my Twitch stream. It’s been slow going, partly because this is not yet my full-time job and partly because there’s a lot I still have to learn about technology, but I’m working hard to make a fun and interactive home base for my Street Team. If you don’t know what a street team is, don’t fret, I’ve posted an FAQ. Your feedback and questions are very welcome! Submit here.

In addition to the new pages here, I’m doing my part to make myself more interactive and accessible. I’m the first to admit that social media doesn’t really light my fire, but I’ve been thinking hard about things I can do to get more involved in ways that will be fun for me and all of you. To start, I’ve begun (just today) to start using my Snapchat story feature. I thought it would be a great way to offer you all glimpses into my daily life and give you the opportunity to see what a goob I actually am. Add me on Snap @roselynncannes to see #adayinthelife of Cannes-Can. You’re welcome.

The other social media platform I’ve been supremely underutilizing is Goodreads. I’ve always been an avid reader and I ache when I think about how little reading I’ve done lately. This needs to change immediately, if not sooner. I’ve added a “Currently Reading” widget here so you will always know what book I’ve got my nose stuck in. Don’t forget to add me on Goodreads so we can nerd out together over our latest and greatest literary obsessions. I’m always open to book recommendations and I love dissecting the tops and bottoms of my reading list.

I’ve heard it said time and again that consistency is the secret to success. I’ve also heard it said that writers write (go figure). One of my issues with consistently blogging has been that I don’t always know what I want to write about and I wait for inspiration to strike, which typically means that I’m waiting for something I feel highly emotionally invested in. As I spend a lot of time doing follow-up research, searching for the perfect words, editing, and finding appropriate media content to include with my posts, I tend to be a bit of a slow writer. By the time it’s all said and done, I’ve frequently lost my fervor for whatever I started writing about and the post sits unfinished, never to see the light of day. Suffice to say I need to change my methods or I will forever and always be in a state of fits-and-starts.

Since what I really want to do is write for a living and since many of you are here because of my written content, it’s logical to make flash fiction my priority focus for my blog. I’ve had a blast doing promotional flash fiction and I love the idea of doing more of it. Part of what made the promotional pieces so fun for me was the game aspect. I was given a prompt – and in some cases a requisite story to build on and words I had to include – and good, bad, or ugly I had to make the best of what I was given. It really forced me to think outside my normal patterns and get creative in order to write a cohesive and interesting short. To date, I hadn’t been able to find a consistent source for prompts that inspired the same sense of fun, uniqueness, and challenge I experienced when I wrote those flash fiction pieces. Well, ask and ye shall receive! Husband inadvertently placed the perfect set of prompts in my stocking for Christmas this year (Thank you, Darling!). The first post will go live this Friday and each subsequent Friday in what I shall be dubbing #FlashFictionFriday. The only thing I love more than games is secrets and I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise, so you’ll just have to stay tuned. This is either the best idea I’ve ever had, or the worst. We shall see 😉

Last, but certainly not least, I’ve recently joined Patreon, which I hope will be great for me and for all of my fans. If you don’t know what Patreon is, that’s okay. You can read a bit about what it is and why it will be good for me, and by association all of you, here. Success for me would mean that writing is lucrative enough to make story-telling my full-time job. My success means that I have more time to create more of the content you want from me. If you enjoy my content, be it on my blog, my fiction, my stream, or my social media, at least check my Patreon out. Even if you decide patronage isn’t for you, there are lots of other ways you can show your appreciation, connect with me, and get involved. I’d love to see all your smiling faces! (Literally).

This is Cannes-Can wishing you all a very Happy New Year! Thank you all for being here! I heart your collective faces off!!!

Hey there, party people! What better way to christen the new website than a video. During my live interview with Shelf Addiction, I endeavored to answer the tough questions, and I did so with all the effectiveness of Peter Griffin attempting to tackle the greased up deaf guy at a picnic if I do say so myself.